U.S. Hostages in Beirut Issue Appeal to Reagan : Chide Him for Lack of Action, Cite Quick Release of Daniloff; President Angrily Rejects Charge

Two American hostages being held captive by Muslim extremists in Lebanon appealed to the Reagan Administration on Friday to work as hard to free them as it did to bring about the release of reporter Nicholas Daniloff from the Soviet Union.

Their appeal, set forth in a 10-minute videotape delivered to Western news agencies in Beirut, included a statement by Terry A. Anderson, 38, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press. Unlike other hostages, Anderson, who was abducted in March of 1985, had not appeared in earlier taped messages.

“How can any official justify the interest, attention and action given in (the Daniloff) case and the inattention given ours?” Anderson asked.

Reagan Responds

In Washington, President Reagan angrily rejected the hostages’ suggestion that he is less interested in their fate than he was in Daniloff’s.

“There’s no comparison between the two situations,” a visibly upset Reagan told reporters as he departed for the presidential retreat at Camp David. In Daniloff’s case, “we were dealing with a government that had arrested one of our citizens, we think unjustly,” while the hostages in Beirut “were not seized by a government. We don’t know who is holding them.”

“There has never been a day that we have not been trying every channel to get our hostages back from Lebanon,” he declared, adding, “I have a feeling they were doing this (making the videotape) under the order of their captors.”

The videotape, along with a written statement, was delivered by a terrorist group or groups that takes the name Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War. Islamic Jihad is holding three Americans and three French nationals in an attempt to force the release of 17 persons imprisoned in Kuwait for carrying out car-bomb attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983.

Anderson appeared in the tape along with David P. Jacobsen, 55, of Huntington Beach, Calif., the director of the American University Hospital in Beirut. Jacobsen was kidnaped in West Beirut on May 28, 1985.

Third Hostage Absent

The two men referred to a third hostage, Thomas Sutherland, 55, the dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut, but they did not explain why Sutherland did not appear on the tape.

They also confirmed that another American hostage, William Buckley, had been killed by his captors. Buckley, 57, of Medford, Mass., a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, was abducted March 16, 1984.

Both Anderson and Jacobsen referred to him Friday as having been “murdered,” though his body has never been found.

Another hostage, American University librarian Peter Kilburn, was found slain in April.

Daniloff Case Cited

Anderson, whose home is in Batavia, N.Y., spoke at length about Daniloff, the former Moscow correspondent of U.S. News & World Report, who was allowed to leave the Soviet Union on Monday under a complex arrangement negotiated by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

“After two years of empty talk, the refusal to act on the part of the Reagan Administration, it hurt,” Anderson said, “to see the propaganda and bombast with which that Administration solved the problem of Mr. Daniloff, a citizen like us who was in prison a short time. How can any official justify the interest and attention and action given the case and the inattention given ours?”

In Batavia, Anderson’s sister, Peggy Say, said she thought the Daniloff case had pushed him into making the tape.

“Terry has refused to cooperate in the making of tapes up until now, because he’s basically hard-headed,” she said. “But I think he is really angry right now and wants to give some indication that he wonders when people in Washington are going to wake up and get him out.”

Appeals to Reagan

Jacobsen, who issued a similar appeal to Reagan last week, said in the videotape: “President Reagan made his first mistake in the hostage crisis and Buckley died. Mr. President, are you going to make another mistake at the cost of our lives? Don’t we deserve the same attention and protection that you gave Daniloff?”

Jacobsen said the conditions of captivity for the hostages had severely worsened since the release in July of Father Lawrence M. Jenco of Joliet, Ill., after 19 months as a hostage.

“Days, months and years are passing by and there is no end in sight for our situation,” said Jacobsen. “This nonsensical situation is being continued by the American government coldly.”

Jacobsen said the latest videotape was recorded on Thursday. He addressed part of his remarks to his son, Eric, of Huntington Beach, who has lobbied the Administration to work for the hostages’ release. “Keep up your efforts, increase your efforts, because you are the light of freedom in a very dark world,” the senior Jacobsen said.

‘Cruel and Inhumane’

On Friday, Eric Jacobsen, 30, said it was “cruel and inhumane” for Reagan to suggest that the videotape was entirely the work of his father’s captors. He charged that the Administration had never made the hostages’ release a top priority, as they did Daniloff’s freedom, “because there is no political gain to negotiating for these hostages. What are they (the Reagan Administration) going to get except the lives of these men? They don’t have a summit pending . . . . We need the same concern on a human level by the President and the Administration that Mr. Daniloff received.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes, echoing Reagan’s remarks, said the Administration would be willing to talk with the hostages’ captors if it knew who they are.

“If those who are holding the individuals would step forward for discussion, that might move the thing forward,” Speakes said, adding that the Administration has only “general ideas from time to time” about where the hostages are and which group is holding them.

Another White House official interjected, “That doesn’t mean we have a street address or telephone number.” Speakes reiterated that the Administration’s policy was that “we will talk, but we will not negotiate nor give in to demands” made by terrorists.

No Guarantees

Asked if the Administration would make any kind of guarantee that there would be no retaliation if the captors should come forward, Speakes said “no.” He said that even to discuss such a concession is “fruitless” and said it would set an unacceptable precedent.

On the videotape, both Anderson and Jacobsen wore neatly trimmed beards. They appeared to be physically fit, though Anderson had clearly lost weight, according to his Associated Press colleagues, and his voice seemed somewhat strained.

Over the months there have been a number of communications from the hostages, letters in some instances and tape recordings in others. But it is widely believed that the contents have been dictated by the hostages’ captors.

Besides the three men held by Islamic Jihad, two other Americans were kidnaped in West Beirut last month. They are Frank H. Reed, 53, director of the Lebanese International School, and Joseph J. Cicippio, 56, a Pennsylvania banker who was working as acting controller of the American University of Beirut.

Both men are married to Arab women and are converts to Islam. A number of groups have claimed responsibility for their abductions.

Times staff writers Eleanor Clift, in Washington, and Mark Landsbaum, in Huntington Beach, contributed to this story.